E-commerce is becoming an everyday part of business life. Grasmere Digital Imaging is one of the first UK printers to adopt it for print. Barney Cox investigates.

Grasmere's move into new markets began in 1994. "I had a vision five years ago that digital was going to be the future," says managing director Tom Stock. "Grasmere used to be a `me too' company: we've changed to being an innovator, building a range of products based on digital opportunities."

The firm's first move into digital was buying Leeds-based repro house RCS Graphics in June 1996. "We bought RCS for the colour expertise of its staff," says Stock. RCS was renamed Grasmere Digital Imaging (GDI), and an Indigo was installed.

Grasmere looked at the market and what it could profitably do with its Indigo. "Hardly anyone is using digital printing for what it is capable of," claims sales director Peter Lancaster. "Most people are selling reactively - selling short-run on the back of digital."

"Quickprint is getting quicker and cheaper and will continue to erode the market that most digital press owners have put themselves into," adds Stock.

A market for business cards

"Analysis of the market showed that business cards are an ideal product," explains Lancaster. "Your card is a very important part of business presentation. Often it's the only thing you leave behind after a meeting. Corporate image can be let down by the printer's production of cards."

Most business cards also fall into the small order market. Director of development Ivor Jacobs estimates that 80% of all print work by volume is small orders worth £20-£30. He says: "The problem has always been cost-effective typesetting, especially as small printers are much more printers than designers and pre-press experts. There has always been tension between the printer and customer in terms of design, quality and price."

To reduce the costs associated with design, pre-press and order processing, Grasmere looked to e-commerce. At this time its path crossed with The Card Corporation, a London-based firm, headed up by Jacobs, which was also developing a web-based card design and ordering system. The match proved ideal, giving an integrated design, ordering and production system.

A web-based solution

Grasmere is starting by offering business card ordering with three different services suited to corporate clients, designers and quick printers, and individuals.

The corporate service is offered via printers and print brokers as a complete system. Each client gets a dedicated website with their branding and a template for the card with blank fields for employee details. A password protected administration level is used to set up maximum order numbers and check orders to prevent unauthorised transactions.

A second service for designers and quick printers is offered where Quark documents for the cards are emailed to GDI.

It also runs a consumer service, Card Corporation, on the internet. Customers choose from a range of basic elements and text styles to produce their own cards.

All services use the same form for job details and order processing. The standard-format cards are supplied in multiples of 125, with a basic cost of £16.50 for the first 125 and £6.75 for each additional 125 of the same type per order. Jobs are ready for delivery within three working days of an order being received.

At the moment corporate service provides the bulk of the business, and is where it is working hardest to attract new business. It is on the verge of signing up half a dozen new clients and has been working through a list of leads attracted at its first public outing at Northprint.

In the short-term Grasmere is concentrating on building the corporate side and adding further business products to its range. Long-term it is the consumer side that looks most promising. Jacobs believes that the information superhighway is a better place for quickprint than the high street, and wants a piece of the action. "There is no doubt that the website is the print shop of the future," says Jacobs. "We aim to be a major player, if not the major player in the small order market."

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